from the state, but, in the Autumn of 1883, I returned to assist in organizing an Indian Industrial School at Genoa, in the building which was erected for my Pawnee school in 1865. I remained in the state nearly two years and then left to establish myself in a permanent home in Tabor, Iowa.

In Volumn I, of the Transactions and Reports of the Nebraska State Historical Society, I find communications proving the noble descent of Mr. Henry Fontenelle, of Decatur, Nebraska. It is for me to prove that Mrs. Emily Fontenelle, his wife, sprung also from the noblesse, not however on the father's side. She was one of the two girls who were my pupils the first winter after our appointment as teachers to the Pawnees. Her mother, sister of Whiteman Chief, was a very superior woman in form, feature, bearing and intellect. The Skedee band,, to which she belonged, was superior to the other three bands which formed the Pawnee tribe; its members had a higher grade of intellect, were more cleanly in their habits, and their language which was a dialect of the Pawnee, had a musical intonation, which betrayed the origin of the speaker the moment his voice was heard. When Emily was about seven years of age, her mother took her to Mrs. Mathers, the wife of the superintendent of the farms, and said this child being a twin, was favored of God and was given to her white, and she thought it proper she should be educated with white people. Neither Whiteman Chief nor his sister was as dark as the average Indian, and their finely cut features, dignity of bearing and accurate thinking, proved them far above their surroundings. As the Pawnees originally came from the south it is not improbable that they sprang from some old Aztec king. Whiteman Chief went at one time on an embassy to Washington, and on his return had much to tell his people of the greatness of La-chi-Koots-(Big Knives-Americans) and of their territory. In order to give them an idea of its vastness, he said, were he to start when a very young man and travel till he was old he would not have visited half of their cities. Of the wonderful things shown him, he told of a dish brought him with a substance that moved round in it like water, but when they told him to take it, it came near falling from his hands it was so heavy, and when it was poured into a cloth sack and he looked in to see it, it was not there. That was very wonderful. Then a gun was brought, and he saw the bullet put in, pressed down, it was pointed at a tar

get and he saw where the ball hit, but heard no sound. That was too-war-axty (miraculous) and he thought how good a thing for his people to have such guns; then, when the Sioux came, they could hide in the grass and the enemy would fall on every side wondering what had hit them. He was taken to the ocean and he essayed to look over on the other side, but he could not. He looked again and again, and there was no other side; it was so vast; it was like God. Another thing deeply impressed him. There were days when all of the people stopped their work, and dressing very nicely, they met in a large house and read and sang and talked-one man to the people— and then he spoke to an invisible one. The next day each one he met looked very happy and he saw them smiling and shaking hands and looking rested, and he thought it would be good for his people to have such days. The sister had no such means of proving her powers of observation, but in her motherhood, she showed greatness. She insisted her daughter should be kept in school, and when one of the chiefs of her band and Emily's stepfather took her home, because of a slight punishment she had received, the mother brought her back, telling her she was to stay and accept punishment, if it camethat she took a rod and whipped her if she offended even at home, and she was not to make an ado for any such little thing.

But she was a woman of very sad face, always seeming to be bearing a mental burden, and when in after years I learned that Emily was a daughter of Mr. Pappan, one of the Fur Company at Bellevue, the mystery was explained, for in those days there was a high sense of chastity among the women of that people. So thoroughly had Emily learned the value of that virtue from her mother, that her grief and indignation knew no bounds when first told that her father was a white man. She flung back the charge with disdain, saying she knew her mother had never proven untrue to her father—that she remembered him as an Indian and that he had died an honorable death. Emily continued in the school and went with us to Bellevue when we fled from the Sioux, and during all the years of her young womanhood, though beset by temptations and entreaties, even by those who had her in charge, to give herself to white suitors, she never trusted them but prefered one of her own race.

Mrs. Fontenelle has long been a member of the Episcopal church, and the more intimately she is known, the more she is beloved. She

is possessed of a very amiable and affectionate spirit, but while possessed of these desirable womanly qualities, she is by no means a weak character. Like all Indians she has an intense nature and whatever emotion moves her takes deep hold of every fibre of her being. She was early religiously impressed, and the more she learned the Living Truth, the more she deplored the ignorance and vice of her people, being so deeply impressed as to refrain from food, while she silently wept over their degradation. Her sense of justice was keen. After her marriage, while on a visit to us in Iowa, in telling of the wrongs which she found the tribe to which her husband belonged, as well as her own suffered at the hands of the white men, she vehemently exclaimed, "I do sometimes think that Satan is stronger than God-if I were he, I would stamp them under my feet."

During the same visit on inquiring into the then existing Kansas difficulties, the system of American slavery, was explained to her. She listened in silence, while the cruel tyranny of many slave-holders was depicted, and when the speaker ceased she looked up and while a black cloud of scorn swept over her face said, "It is good enough for them, if they will be a slave; I will never be a slave to any man; I would cut my throat first." She still lives, honored by her husband and beloved by the children, who are all now grown to manhood and womanhood.

THE SIOUX INDIAN WAR OF 1890-'91.

[BY BRIGADIER GENERAL L. W. COLBY, COMMANDING THE NEBRASKA NaTIONAL GUARD.]

The Indian troubles which finally terminated in what is popularly termed the "Great Sioux War of 1890–291," apparently started with the "Ghost Dances." The drouth and consequent failure of crops were everywhere general throughout the western states and territories and especially in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Nebraska. This affected the Indians as well as the white population in this section. This misfortune, to which was added the failure on the part of the gov ernment to supply the customary rations, produced actual suffering among the Indian tribes occupying the Pine Ridge, Rosebud and other reservations in the northwest. They were in need of the necessaries of life; a long cold winter was approaching, and starvation menaced them. The word was given out by some of their prophets and medicine men that the Great Spirit would send them a Messiah to relieve them in their dire necessity. The "Ghost Dances" were but a preparatory ceremony for his coming. The excitement and enthusiasm over his expected advent spread from tribe to tribe, and extended to settlements having no special suffering or affliction. The great Sioux nation, with reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska, was especially affected by it, and the excitement which pervaded the whole nation, together with the zeal and enthusiasm, including the weird and barbarous ceremonies, so frightened and thoroughly possessed the Indian agents, store keepers, government employes and white people generally, that these actions were exag gerated and magnified into preparations for immediate war.

The Indian races of America have been variously located and named. Originally the Irioquois and Algonquins occupied the northern part, the Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles had possession of the south, while all of that country west of the Mississippi river and north of the Arkansas river was in possession of a powerful Indian

nation known as the La-ko-tas, or as afterwards called by the whites, Dakotas. The Chippewa Indians, one of the Algonquin tribes, called this nation Nadowessiour as a term of contempt, which was soon transformed by the whites into Sioux, by which name they are now generally known. The great Sioux chiefs, however, take pride in calling themselves Oceti Sakowin, or the nation of Seven Council Fires, referring to the time when their seven councils were but one, and they were a happy and united people.

The Sioux nation is composed of the following seven tribes or councils: 1. The Inde-wa-kan-ton-wan, or Village of the Holy Lake; 2. The Wah-pe-ku-te, or Leaf Shooters; 3. The Wah-pe-ton-wan, or Village in the Leaves, generally called the Wahpeton Sioux; 4. The Sis-se-ton-wan, or Village in the Marsh, known as the Sisseton Sioux; 5. The I-hank-ton-wan-na, or Upper End Village, generally known as the Upper Yanktonnais; 6. The I-hank-ton-wan, or End Village, known as the Lower Yanktonnais; 7. The Te-ton-wan, or Prairie Village, known as the Teton Sioux. The first four of the above named tribes are known as the I-san-ti, or Santee. The greatest of the seven tribes is the Teton Sioux, which is also subdivided into seven great families, as follows: The Si-can-gu, Brule, or Burnt Thighs; 2. The I-taz-ip-co, Sans Ares, or No Bows; 3. The Si-hasa-pa, or Blackfeet; 4. The Mi-ni-kan-ye, or Those Who Plant by the Water; 5. The Oo-hen-on-pa, or Two Kettles; 6. The O-gal-lallas, or Wanderers in the Mountains; 7. The Une-pa-pas, or Those Who Dwell by Themselves.

The four Santee tribes originally dwelt in Minnesota and Eastern Dakota. The home of the Yanktonnais was east of the Missouri River, extending over a tract of country from Sioux City to the British Possessions; while the Tetons occupied the territory west of the Missouri river and north of the Platte River to the Rocky Mountains on the west.

Sitting Bull belonged to the tribe, or family, of the Une-pa-pas and was therefore an Unc-pa-pa Teton Sioux. Young-Man-Afraid-of-hisHorses is an O-gal-lal-la Teton Sioux.

Along the first part of November, 1890, the Indians appeared to become organized for the purpose of redressing their wrongs, and serious trouble was apprehended by those most experienced in the Indian character.

The settlers in Nebraska, and North and South